Fitness First ready to build muscle after profit boost

A punishing three-year regime to get Britain’s biggest health club chain back in shape appears to be working. Fitness First, which has 377 clubs around the world, will reveal today that profits in the UK have started to improve after five years of decline while its struggling Australian unit is also on the up.

The group, which was rescued from the brink of collapse in 2012, said that a £200 million investment programme launched the following year was starting to bear fruit and expansion was now back on the agenda.

The group, controlled by Oaktree Capital Management, recently opened a club in Bishopsgate, in the City of London, its first new UK club since it went through a company voluntary arrangement to weed out loss-making…